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Hi Greg. Thanks for the in-depth response. It helps us understand not only your personality better, but the personality of the thing you've created.
Looking at it from a customer-support angle, suppose I'm one of your customers (which now I definitely am, right?). Suppose I've adopted an approach of observing using sets of objects for the time being - because, well, that's my approach to the hobby. I know that's different than the approach you think everybody should use. I respect your orientation and I understand it. But just suppose you're listening to me as a customer, trying to help me figure out how to solve my customer problem - rather than trying to rearrange the way I'm pursuing the hobby. Suppose, as your customer, I'm working my way through a set of objects in a list like the Messier list and I get to M84 and realize that, in my scope, it's in the same field of view as M86. How would you "group" or create a visual link between these two objects... so that everytime I see M84 in my Messier list, I remember that it's *associated* with M86?

And suddenly, I realize that ... every time I go to M81, I should arrange the field of view so that I also look at M82?

And it's crazy ... if my scope has a wide field of view (which mine does) that I don't try to make sure I visually group M31, M32, and M110. Because they just *go* together.

And if I'm careless, I forget that I could look at M7 and M108 in the same field of view as well. They just *go* together.

You get the idea. How do we represent the fact that these objects are naturally grouped? Because me as an observer, there should be a way ... in such a dynamic and capable product as SkyTools, to say, "These objects are part of the same object family -- every time I go there, regardless of which list we're using or which observing goal we have - they will always go together."

How would we do that, Greg?

Firstly, I think maybe I failed just a bit to make myself fully understood. Its my job to solve your problems. But that's not the same thing as giving you exactly what you asked for. Like I said, you tell me why you want something-how it fits into the way you observe-and I'll find the solution. Please don't imagine that means that I want to force you into doing things "my way." People say that when I don't give them exactly what they want. But that's not really fair. SkyTools must remain consistent, it must remain as uncluttered as possible, and what you want it to do needs to be doable. I have a lot of things to consider that are not obvious to everyone else.

I know its unusual, but what I really want is to have an argument about this. I want someone to make me understand the nature of their issue, and then when I push back, perhaps by suggesting the problem has already been solved in another way, convince me I'm wrong. Believe it or not, there are some key features of SkyTools that long ago were the result of someone taking the time to have an argument with me about it.

You said, "I'm working my way through a set of objects in a list like the Messier list and I get to M84 and realize that, in my scope, it's in the same field of view as M86. How would you "group" or create a visual link between these two objects... so that every time I see M84 in my Messier list, I remember that it's *associated* with M86?"

Now that - that's a good argument. Its something I can sink my teeth into.

But again, to play devils advocate - what if we had a simple visual way to achieve this that had the following features: 1) you had to take no actions to make it work, and 2) that it would even tell you these objects were grouped together before you ever observed them?

To my mind that's why we have charts, especially the eyepiece views. Now, I'm not trying to be facetious here- what I mean is that when I decide to go out to observe, however I may be doing that at the time, I usually take a little time to research the objects that I am going to look at. This means first filtering the list to just the ones I am going to try for that night, and then I right-click to open the Object Info and/or a chart. The Object Information has a tab that can find nearby objects by the way, and of course the charts naturally show them.

To remind myself I could make a note in the brief for M81 to remind me to look at M82 when I go to M81.

But what you guys were talking about earlier was a feature that linked log entries, and you wanted to be the arbiter of which objects were connected in this manner rather than some sort of automated process. That's the part I'm having trouble with and it seems somewhat unrelated to the problem you have posed. It seems to me like a different issue altogether. Lets think about M46 and its planetary nebula, NGC 2438. Its difficult to separate the two observations, yet they are for two distinct objects of different types. Its not like two galaxies that are part of a galaxy cluster and you could just log the cluster. But I don't see this as having to do with observing lists and planning. It seems to me to be more about organizing your logs. Assuming you made separate log entries for each of them, isn't it really more about wanting to quickly see the log for one when viewing the log for the other?

Now it's my turn to ask you to humor me. : ) Would you forgive me just long enough for me to show you an Astroplanner interpretation of Phil Harrington's Cosmic Challenge list?



(Rats. Why won't that show up well. It's so ugly. We can't even see all the groupings in this browser view. If you would please, right-click then "save as" that picture on your own machine - then observe it using any imaging software on your computer. Then it will show up well I think.)

See how Harrington has grouped several objects as one "listing" in his list. Sadly, we, the readers, have no control over that. We just know that these were groupings that Harrington observed in nature - and he talks about all these objects in the same chapter of his book. How do we show these groupings, Greg?

And I'm not comparing Astroplanner to SkyTools. I'm just saying, "Harrington's book is our list. How can we reflect that reality in SkyTools, brother?" Obviously, I think I've come to believe that the catalogue in SkyTools is better... and the solution SkyTools has for the atlas is better than a script that connects AstroPlanner with Stellarium. So I'm here - trying to make this work. But ... please... help me figure out how we can present this reality?

"We just know that these were groupings that Harrington observed in nature - and he talks about all these objects in the same chapter of his book. How do we show these groupings, Greg?"

Well, that is a good question, although that's kind of an extreme example. I'm assuming its due to the wide field of view assumed.

So is this just a notation though? I mean, I am not a fan, ahem, so what happens when you want to observe M11? Does it just direct you to M11? If that's the case, then how is this different from just entering this text into the Brief column? Or pasting all of his text into the note itself for that matter... Or are you asking me to do it for you?

We also seem to have gotten a long way from log entries.

It's ok, Greg. You're the developer. People are going to decide whether or not they want/like your application. You have absolute power to develop it however you like. Just please consider this a feature request - that SkyTools would be a more powerful program if it gave us the ability to group objects. That's all.

Wow. I was curious about how what you were describing actually works. Why bother to bring it up then? I cannot honor a feature request that I do not understand.

Well thanks for wanting to know. I was afraid I was annoying you. : ) In the list from Harrington's book (Cosmic Challenge), if I could do it in SkyTools, I would associate:
Alcor and Mizar
The four stars in the Great Square of Pegasus
The deep sky objects that make up Markarian's Chain
The Leo Triplet
Barnard 142 and 143 (Barnard's "E")
M31, M32, M110
I would somehow show the 6 Apollo landing sites on the moon and associate all of them
NGC 2959, 2976, and 3077 (Garland)
Barnard 33 and IC434
NGC2964, 2968, and 2970
Stefan's Quintet
Fornax 1,2,4,5,6
Copeland's Septet
...and the list goes on

If I can associate objects like these somehow in SkyTools and make that obvious when I view them in the Cosmic Challenge list, it would help. But for the time being, I'll just try to crowd all these names in the "Brief Note" - but with everything I'm putting in the Brief Note, it's going to run out of space really soon. hahaha : )

I'm not sure how else to explain it.

It's almost like ... what Abell did when he established a catalogue and named objects like Abell 1060

Unfortunately it seems we are talking at cross purposes, and its likely my fault for changing gears on you. I told you only yo tell me what you wanted and its purpose and you just did that.

But what I wanted to know in this case is this: in your AP example, how does that actually work in practice: how are the objects associated?

1. Did you or someone else type in a list of related objects as a string that is displayed?
2. Is there a formal way to associate objects, where for, say M11, you directly associate a list of other objects rather than just a string?

Maybe you can see where I'm going with this. If the answer is 1, then this feature already exists in SkyTools via the Note Brief, and you can even share it with others by attaching the folder to the list when you export it.

Answer 2 is the more interesting one, and it leads to more interesting questions: if one object truly has other objects associated with it in some way (not just by a description string) then how are these links established, and how are they used? E.g is there more to this than just displaying a listing of associated objects?

Ahhh I understand your question now.
In AP, users only have to "select" (either one at a time, or multiple single instances with ctrl-click, or a band of adjacent items using shift-click) the items, then right-click them and choose "Associate." If the user selects items that are already associated, then the right-click context menu includes an option to "disassociate" the items. Users can associate any items they want - for any reason. In this way, it's entirely user-driven. Associated items are always pulled like magnets to be "adjacent" to one another in a list.

Did that answer the question Greg? (Good question, by the way.)

Ok, that's interesting. But the next question is really important too: does the software use this information for any purpose other than to display it like you showed? E.g. are the objects highlighted on the chart a some way? Can you create a log entry for all of them together? Is there some other function that this serves?